Last year we started off almost the same exact way. We were 26-13, lost about 7 players to injury, and lost just enough to finish 2 games above .500 and Phil even experienced his first 7 game losing streak ever.

What is it about this year's team thats still beating pretty good teams with a bunch of injuries? The obvious answer would be execution. We're passing still, finishing plays, and playing tenacious team defense enough to give the arena free tacos.

Of course, you have to look at guys that improved their game over last year. Bynum is the biggest one but he's injured so I will mention guys like Farmar, Turiaf, Derek Fisher's return, these guys can all be linked to the lakers success this season.

Then you have to look at the ultimate change on this squad. Kobe. He was able to switch his game to a defense first mentality and made adjustments to find other important guys like Bynum and make them so much better.

All these little keys come from one word: dedication!

This team is dedicated. They don't like being a bunch of first round exits. They don't like losing to horrible teams. They don't want to use injuries as an excuse for losing games, they dont want to lose games period!

It's become clear that everyone on this team has adjusted to Kobe's expectations and noone is settling less for a championship.

I can't wait to see what happens these next 8 weeks, and after that when Bynum, Ariza, Vladimir, and all the others come back, we should simply dominate games!

I have come to trust Phil for preparing this team for tough situations.

Yep. We have significantly improved players (Farmar, Sasha, and Bynum), added better players (Fisher and Ariza), and become dedicated to winning.

We play better defense and execute better on offense.

Now, its not hard to beat a team like the Nuggets because they have non-existant defense (even with Bynum out we have more than enough offense), the struggles will come against good defense teams like the Spurs.

The main issue is that I believe Bynum has not only surpassed Kwame on offense (that's very clear) but has at least matched if not exceeded Kwame on defense too. Bynum may not be as great of a one-on-one defense big man as Kwame, but he's a better rebounder, shot-blocker, and general help defender than Brown. He has also learned how to avoid getting into foul trouble (which kept him from playing big minutes in the past). Basically, at this point we lose more than just scoring when Bynum goes down. We lose our best defensive post presence.

I think Turiaf should be starting by the way. You simply cannot have a guy who is a black hole on offense and doesn't offer too much on defense either. Its not like he's Ben Wallace, who'll get you 15 rebounds and 5 blocks. Kwame just plays decent to above average defense and that's all. But it stalls the whole team on the other end of the court to pass him the ball. Turiaf on the other hand can finish with a mid-range jumper and get to the basket and score (i.e. actually catch the ball and dunk it when wide open).

Good observations. the theme on this team has changed, they have high goals and are passionate about reaching new levels.

2-1 without Bynum. still a tough stretch coming up.

You really need to ask that question?

Actually, the record this year is punctuated by the fact that the schedule was much harder within the 26-13 span. They have had to play more on the road and tougher teams. So, they have improved quite a bit. I think that always needs to be brought up when making comparisons to last year, IMO.

You don't think Sir Bynum has anything to do with this success? and leave smush alone loool

I think he's just giving more credit to Fish. IMHO: Adding Fish and subtracting SMUSH is worth at least 5 games in the course of the season. 5 games is like going from 7th seed to 5th seed.

But everyone can see now that Bynum made the game easier for everyone. Anytime you have a true center who can score down low with his back to the basket, that's heaven for the jump shooters. They don't even have to work to get open.

Actually, the record this year is punctuated by the fact that the schedule was much harder within the 26-13 span. They have had to play more on the road and tougher teams. So, they have improved quite a bit. I think that always needs to be brought up when making comparisons to last year, IMO.

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I agree the Lakers have been in the top 5 for strength of schedule this yr... Last year they had a lopsided home court schedule. So just the diffrence in the schedules and the same record shows we have improved.

Fish has vastly improved our team and Ariza is great. Couple that with Bynum, Farmar and Turiaf improving and you have a greatly improved team from last year.

The progress is amazing to me. It is actually fun to watch the Lakers again this year instead of waiting to see if Kobe was going to have a great night or soso night to figure out who was going to win. I am just puzzled by the play of Luke Walton. What has happened to him? He was getting better and better the last two seasons and now he seems to be regressing back to when he first started out.http://www.websmileys.com/sm/fam/fam21.gif